Sloane POV:
Genevieve's verdict hung in the air like a guillotine strike. Aubrey clung to Sterling's arm, her face a mask of fake sympathy masking pure greed. Martha looked at me like I was a stain on her shoes.
I kept my head bowed, my shoulders shaking. I needed them to think I was crushed. The deeper they dug this grave for me, the harder the dirt would hit them when I blew it up.
Genevieve dismissed me entirely. Her eyes darted to the photographers, who were still snapping pictures of the spectacle. "Handle them," she ordered her head of security. The suits moved in, shoving hands over camera lenses.
I had to seize control of the narrative. I took a tiny step backward, my bare back brushing against Tack's leather jacket.
"Fifty thousand," I whispered, my voice barely audible over the shouting. "Get me out of here. Now."
Tack looked down at me. His blue eyes were sharp, calculating the angles. He knew exactly what I was doing.
"A hundred," he murmured back.
"Deal."
Without warning, Tack's arm snaked around my waist. He hoisted me off the ground and threw me over his shoulder like a sack of grain. I let out a startled gasp, clutching the sheet to my chest as the cameras went into a frenzy.
"Stop him!" Genevieve shrieked.
The Kensington guards lunged. Tack held his ground, completely unfazed. He dropped me onto the leather seat of his Harley, his hand flashing to the small of his back. In a blur of motion, he pulled out a matte-black Glock and racked the slide. The sharp, metallic clack cut through the chaos like a knife.
He spun around, leveling the barrel dead center at the lead guard's chest, his eyes burning with a psychotic, violent joy.
"Who wants to bleed first?" he growled. The sheer, unhinged menace radiating from him—and the lethal weapon in his hand—made the trained guards freeze in their tracks, their hands instinctively rising in surrender.
Tack shoved the gun back into his waistband, swung his leg over the bike, and kicked the starter. The engine roared to life. He dumped the clutch, and we tore out of the parking lot, leaving Genevieve choking on our exhaust fumes.
I gripped his leather vest, the wind tearing at my hair. Once we hit the highway, I reached under the sheet, pulled out my burner phone, and hit Send.
"What the hell are you doing?" Tack yelled over the wind.
"Adding a little flavor to the morning news," I yelled back, a genuine, vicious smile breaking across my face.
Miles behind us, every reporter in that parking lot—and both Genevieve and Sterling—just received an anonymous link. The thumbnail was crystal clear: Sterling and Aubrey, tangled naked in a hotel bed, completely lost in each other.
Axel, my trusted fixer and right-hand man, had planted the hidden cameras in their favorite suite three days ago. I knew they would indulge in a celebratory fuck on the very morning they planned to ruin me.
I watched the road blur past, the crushing weight of the last four years lifting off my chest.
Tack brought us back to another motel. He kicked the door shut, leaned against the wall, and lit a cigarette. He watched me pull my laptop from my bag and start typing furiously. "You want to explain what just happened?"
"I just made you a hundred grand and gave you front-row seats to a slaughter," I said, keeping my eyes locked on the screen as I routed the video through three different offshore servers.
Tack walked over, blowing a stream of smoke past my ear, and looked at the screen. "Sterling Kensington and your sister. A sex tape." He let out a low whistle. "You're a ruthless little thing, aren't you?"
My burner phone vibrated. Unknown number. I turned to Tack, smiled at him, and said, "Would you like to see an even better performance?"
I answered it and put it on speaker.
"What do you want?" Genevieve's voice was ragged. The imperial matriarch was gone; this was a woman watching her empire catch fire.
"Me?" I feigned innocence. "Mrs. Kensington, I'm just a heartbroken girl betrayed by her fiancé and her sister."
"Cut the shit, Sloane. I know you leaked it. Name your price to scrub it from the internet."
"Scrub it? Oh, no. I want it on the six o'clock news." I laughed softly. "Unless..."
"Unless what?" she snapped.
I glanced at Tack. He was staring at me, his eyes dark and unreadable.
"Unless you call a press conference in one hour," I said, my voice turning to ice. "You will announce that the engagement is off because I ended things with a man who was sleeping with my sister."
"That will make us a laughingstock!" Genevieve hissed.
"Choose, Genevieve. A laughingstock, or a criminal investigation into Kensington Group's plummeting stock prices when this video hits the major networks?"
Silence stretched over the line.
"And one more thing," I added, locking eyes with Tack. "To prove I've moved on, you will publicly state that I am now under the protection of Kane Montgomery. You will call me his Old Lady."
Tack's jaw clenched. His eyes flared with a sudden, dangerous heat.
